Senator Manchin States Opposition To Fed Nominee Bloom Raskin

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has issued a statement outlining his opposition to President Biden's nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision.

• This effectively ends Bloom Raskin's nomination as she will require the vote of all 50 Democrat Senators.
• Manchin wrote: 'Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of [energy policy] to meet out nation's critical energy crisis.'
• Manchin went on to repeat the GOP criticism of Bloom Raskin. He wrote: 'The Federal Reserve Board is not an institution that should politicise its critical decisions.'
• Manchin has a history of voting across the aisle on key legislative items of the Democrat agenda but there was an assumption that he would support Biden's Federal Reserve picks as his has done in the past with federal appointments.
• Bloom Raskin's nomination is currently subject to a blockade led by ranking GOP Banking Committee member Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Machin's statement will be considered a victory for the GOP.
• Last week Manchin indicated that the getting 'four out of five nominations would be a good result' for Biden suggesting that he would be in favour of dropping Bloom Raskin.